So I haven’t been blogging lately.

It’s not for lack of ideas. Certainly, with things like the DC election and Education Nation and Waiting for Superman going on, there’s been a lot to write about on the national scene.

And at SLA, we’ve started our first year without the first class. We have made major changes in the way we get work done to better distribute leadership to the people who want to get the work done, we are using GoogleApps for the first time, we have a new walk-through protocol that is all Google-Driven that makes it much easier for me to give feedback, and we are learning what it means to be a school that actually can feel like we know what it feels like to have four years done and can really start reflecting on practice deeply and start revising ideas and begin, in earnest, the transition from start-up to sustainability.

And then there’s this idea that I’ve been kicking around about where and how we should be talking about education reform in this country. The concept is "Leading from the Radical Middle" (which I think I stole from Doug Johnson) but I’ve been doing a lot of staring at the blank screen on that one. But it’s in there, and it’s probably a multi-post piece of writing.

But the reason that this post has its title is because, despite all these reasons to write, I haven’t been. And here’s why. I’m feeling a bit defeated these days. Between Oprah and Waiting for Superman and $100 million for mayoral control to Newark and an increasingly hostile and simplistic rhetoric about public education, I’ve started wondering what a blog entry here and there or a speech in front of teachers here and there can really do. I mean, how do you go up against the PR machine of Bill Gates and Eli Broad? How do you make a difference when you are outmanned and outgunned on what feels like every front?

And then I listen to the voices of my students in class as they dig deeply and powerfully into complex ideas. And then I read the emails and tweets from the first SLA class at college talking about how prepared they are. And I realize that I have to keep writing and talking and teaching, because this isn’t about unions and charters, and it’s not about what Oprah wants or about what Bill Gates wants or even about what Arne Duncan wants. It’s about a vision of what we want our schools to be and therefore a vision of what we want our world to be.

And I realize the way you do it is to do it.

You write the blog entry.

You speak truth to power when you have the opportunity.

And you serve the children who have put their faith in you.

You let their voices rise.

And you let their voices inform and embolden your voice.

Because that’s what’s needed.

And that’s how we win.